The hill rose in front of them, golden-brown in the afternoon light. It wasn't much; a scrubby slope that climbed maybe two hundred feet to a flat outcrop where the rock broke through the grass. From the top you could see the whole valley. The mountains in the distance and Ridgway below.
He hadn't been up there in years.
“Oh,” Greg said, looking through the windshield.
Dustin didn't answer. He got out.
They walked up together in silence. The grass was dry and crunched underfoot. Dustin's shoulder ached with every step—worse since the grocery store—but he ignored it.
They reached the top.
The valley opened below them. Greg stood at the edge of the outcrop and looked at the view—the houses and roads, the river snaking through the fields and the mountains cutting into the sky.
It was a nice view, but Dustin didn't have eyes for it.
Dustin's eyes were glued to the clipboard in Greg's hands.
It looked less solid than it had in the truck.
He swallowed and stood next toGreg. “Tyler and I used to come up here after school. We'd sit here and plan all the things we were going to do.”
He could see them. Two kids with scraped knees and too much energy, sitting on those rocks, looking at the mountains and talking about jumping off them. Tyler's laugh. The way he'd spread his arms and saysomeday, man.
“This is where everything started,” Dustin said. “Tyler looked at the cliffs across the valley and askedwhat if?” He rubbed his thumb across his knuckles. “I saidlet's find out.” He inhaled the crisp air. “I guess my brother and I are the definition offuck around and find out.”
Greg stood so close to him that their arms touched. “What did you find out?”
Dustin shook his head. “Maybe more than I ever wanted to know. Or maybe just all the shit everyone else seems to know instinctively.”
“I think I understand that.” Greg smiled again.
Silence stretched between them. A light breeze stirred Dustin's hair. The afternoon was still and bright and the valley below them was going about its business.
“Do you have a lighter?” Greg asked.
Dustin's stomach clenched.
Right, they'd come here to destroy Greg's clipboard. “You want to light it on fire?”
“Yes,” Greg said solemnly. “That goes against several regulations, but… I suppose they don't matter anymore.” He said this with such a sense of quiet wonder that Dustin almost wanted to tease him about it, like,look at you talking about burning clipboards on a mountain cliff like some sort of rule-breaking hippie.
But the words got stuck in his throat.
His reaper had come such a long way.
Was this where it ended?
“What's going to happen to you?” Dustin asked.
Greg looked at him. The sun was in his glasses and and there was still a streak of marinara on his collar.
“It's like I told you. Reapers don't get an afterlife,” he said. “When we're done, we disperse. The tiny bit of soul material that gave me shape will return to the source, and maybe, one day, it'll be part of something bigger.” He looked out over the valley. “I think nothing ever truly ends.”
Except our time together, Dustin thought.
“I don't want you to go,” he said, the words slipping past his lips before he could stop them. Maybe the most honest thing he'd ever said.
Greg's smile turned wobbly. “I can't stay. I wish I could, I do. But if you let me do this, I can at least go back to the source rather than be snatched by a demon.” He wiped at his eyes. “If I go back, I can be part of something beautiful someday.”
